3 Days in a Commercial Fisherman's Life

By Tavis Oostingh

This Book takes you out to Sea with me and you get to spend 3 Days with me on the Ocean, in a few of my Wildest Days. You will feel and see what I feel and see, literally taking a ride on the Wild side.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tavis Oostingh
• Release date: Jun 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393946731

Book preview

Page 1

3 DAYS IN A COMMERCIAL

FISHERMAN'S LIFE

So, I spent a third of my life on the Ocean, if you take it in hours at

sea and this Book is going to be about three days in those hours.

I could quite easily write on a hundred days or more of what took place on some of the days and many of those days, I should not be here writing this book.

I grew up in East London South Africa until the age of twenty three

and then ended up in a small town called Port Alfred, where I became a Commercial fisherman. I had fished the ocean all my life from the age of ten, when my father first allowed me out to sea. As a family, all five of us had our provincial colors for fishing, which included my Mom. We are three brothers, with me been the eldest.

I spent every free hour I could on the ocean, hitching rides with  other boat owners when my father was not going out and I fished in

many tournaments around the coast of South Africa.

I easily had the points to fish for South Africa in the many international tournaments around the world, but did not have the finances to take part in them.

The Ocean became my hiding place from Society, as I was not could with people and did not like the company of people of the same age

as me. I began my commercial fishing life after I answered a add in

the paper for a Skipper in Port Alfred and worked for a retired couple for three months before we had a falling out. I then spent three months on a friends couch, before I bought my own boat and license to fish commercially.

I had a 21foot Butt cat, which is a double hull fishing vessel with two

outboard engines on the back of it. It was licensed for five people,

but I rarely fished the full five and saw that extra person as more fish in the hatch. I did not have a permanent crew and good reasons for that, as many of the crew available, had a tendency to want to borrow money when considered as permanent crew. So I picked up every morning whoever was available on that given day.

And never ever had a problem with finding any crew, so it suited me

just fine to work that way, never having them at my door begging.

Page 2

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Port Alfred is a small town with a lot of retired people who have

moved from all over the country to the small fishing town. I say

fishing town, because Port Alfred was always known for its fishing before it became a place to retire.

There was a Marine built and the homes on it are for the more wealthier retired person with your own jetty in your garden. A small boat harbor was also built for those that did not have their jetty in their backyard and this is where I kept my vessel, for ease of

launching each morning.

From the small boat harbor it was about a eight hundred meter run, to the mouth of the river which was flanked by two small harbor walls stretching out into the ocean. These walls were built over a hundred years ago, when they brought ships that were still mast and sail driven into the river mouth. The west wall is slightly longer than the east wall and had a small lighthouse on it. But in later years a

light was added to the east wall as well, so the fisherman could find

their way back in at night.

The Port Alfred river mouth, is known in the top three most dangerous launches in South Africa and can be a extremely wild launch at times, as you can see from the Cover photo of this Book. But other times you can't see where the sea starts and the river ends

and you can literally reverse out of the mouth.

The walls themselves stand high off the water, the West wall a good four meters and the East wall about two and half meters. But the West wall over the years has started to crumble and the lighthouse that stood in front on it, had to be moved back a number of meters before it fell into the ocean.

And has been removed recently all together and replaced with